The ECJ (Court of Justice of the European Union) found La France guilty of the application of a reduced rate of VAT to the digital books

The reduced rate proposed by France of 5, 5% in its application to digital books has been considered to be contrary to the community law by the court of Justice of the European Union.

The digital books benefits from a reduce rate of TVA of 5.5% from 1st January 2013. The reduced rate has been condemned by the Court of Justice. As ECJ, the reduced tax rat can only be applied on physics books. The digital books are not considered as physics ones independently of need a physic support to be read.

The ECJ also confirms that the delivery of digital books is included in electronic services where is excluded the possibility of apply a reduce TVA rate.

France has fallen note of this decision in a press release no inter 221-446 March 5, 2014, in which it nevertheless invites the European Commission “to do as soon as possible proposals as part of the strategy for the digital market to introduce into European law a neutrality principle allowing the reduced rate for all books, regardless of their medium. ”